The ferry docks are busy again, bicycles hum along the streets, and the scent of lilacs drifts through the air. After an especially long winter, Mackinac Island has officially sprung back to life for the 2026 season. Shops are reopening, horses are back on the the streets, and visitors are once again pouring onto the car-free tourist site.
At the heart of that seasonal awakening is a quieter but equally vital revival: the 23rd season of the Mackinac Island Arts Council, the nonprofit organization that helps color the island’s cultural landscape as vividly as summer flowers.
“When I was growing up on Mackinac, we didn’t have this,” said arts council executive director Laura Raisch. “A woman named Becki Barnwell, a longtime islander, knew that there was a need for arts, so she created the arts council 23 years ago. It’s the only arts agency on the island. We work in collaboration with Mackinac Island Community Foundation, the city, the Richard and Jane Manoogian Art Museum, the state park; we work with all of the entities on the island to facilitate arts and culture.
“All of the programs we produce are either free or at very low cost, and we produce them for the year-round residents, the seasonal employees and all visitors.”
Seasonal programming includes Thursday night park concerts, museum workshops, community theater, gallery exhibitions and a lecture series, as well as art borrowed from the Detroit Institute of Arts and an annual Mackinac’s Got Talent competition.
“We just started a new lecture series,” said Raisch “where we talk about art. This year, we’ve focused on the 250th anniversary of our country, and the programming committee and I decided while everyone’s talking about 250 years ago, we’re going to talk about the women behind the men. So our entire lecture series is on what women entrepreneurs were doing – women from the DIA, all the female artists at the DIA.
“We’re doing a lecture on the opera that we’ll present, ‘Pagliacci.’ We present one opera each year with the Soo Opera, and we’re trying to get more interest in that.”
The Mackinac State Historic Parks are also getting on the America 250 train this summer.
“We are so excited to celebrate America 250 all season long,” said Dominick Miller, chief of marketing for the parks service. “The American Revolution is the reason Fort Mackinac exists up here, so when you have an anniversary as big as this, we want to celebrate it right. We have daily programs inside the fort, talking about the history, the people that lived at the fort, people who worked there. … We’ll have these programs all season long, including cannon firings, rifle firings, going into the themes of the American Revolution and what that means.”
The arts council also presents three international events each year involving art, a meal and connection.
“We celebrate Latin American heritage, Jamaican heritage and Eastern European heritage,” Raisch said, noting that a large portion of the island’s seasonal workers come from those communities. “We collaborate with restaurants on the island, and we collaborate with the different organizations to make sure that we’re taking care of the most important people on the island, which are the employees. We all serve the island.
“It’s joyous, and it’s strictly for employees. We all gather at the community center, and there’s anywhere from 200 to 350 people that come and go.”
Raisch also pointed to her favorite annual event, which is held in early autumn after children have returned to school.
“Music on the Trail is the second Sunday in September,” she said. “It is an all-day event on the botanical trail in the state park, where visitors, employees, anyone can come and immerse themselves in classical music, singer-songwriter music, poetry, dance, a little bit of Shakespeare. It’s the most magical afternoon. And it’s free! It’s all supported by grants and the members and donors of the Mackinac Arts Council.”
Mark Ware, CEO of the island’s popular Mission Point Resort, joined the Arts Council board in 2017 and took over as board president the following year.
“Mackinac is more than just T-shirts and fun shops,” he said. “There is a rich cultural experience that you can hear. The state park is amazing because they bring in the history aspect … but we want to bring in some of the storytelling, too. I’m not talented; I can’t create. But I appreciate it, right? I want to develop those artists and give them an opportunity to have a showcase and an audience.”
Raisch said her parents began bringing her to the island as an infant.
“When I was 18,” she said, “I was on a ferry boat leaving. I’m a trained dancer, and I said to an islander, ‘Oh, all I want to do is come to Mackinac and teach dance and theater,’ and he said, ‘Good luck with that.’
“Fast forward, many decades – and I’m doing exactly what I wanted to do in the first place. To be able to give these fantastic music concerts in the park and to give community theater and lectures and art classes … it’s a dream, and it so enhances our lives on Mackinac.”
For more information on the Mackinac Arts Council, visit mackinacartscouncil.org.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mackinac Island has more to offer than shops, T-shirts, arts group says
Reporting by Duante Beddingfield, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
